Top 7 effective tips to write a pencil artist resume

The job of a resume is to get you an interview. It is a document that you use to market yourself and justify your abilities to a recruiter. A generic resume might be acceptable in any other job but an artist is expected to show their talent through their resume itself.

If you are drafting a resume as a pencil artist, think outside the box. What subtle things can make your resume more creative and robust? Your resume is the first point of contact you will have with a recruiter, dazzle them the first chance you get.

Don’t fret if it seems too complex. This article will guide you to come up with the perfect pencil artist resume that will take you places.

Here are 7 effective tips you should follow to write an effective pencil artist resume:

1. Link your portfolio

   A portfolio gives your resume legs to stand on. It is the testament and culmination of all your work as a pencil artist. Without a portfolio, a recruiter cannot verify if you are as good an artist as you claim to be on your resume.

   A portfolio should tell the story of your journey as a pencil artist. Organize it with serious consideration.

   Add a link to your portfolio in your resume. Doing this will direct a recruiter to your website so that they can see your accomplishments first hand.

2. Give a proper structure to your resume

   If you dump all the right information on a piece of paper without providing a structure to the data, the recruiter won’t know where to look. It is possible that most of the information won’t come into notice and that which does, won’t make the impact it was intended to make.

   The right structure eliminates this mistake. It makes the resume easier to read and comprehend.

   You should follow the correct resume order of sections in the sequence given below to present your information effectively in your resume:

   • Header
   • Personal Information
   • Profile Title
   • Summary/Objective
   • Key Skills
   • Professional Experience
   • Education
   • Certifications (if any)
   • Awards & Recognition (if any)
   • Additional Information (if any)

   You can see that by dividing your information in the above manner, you are making it easier for the recruiter to identify information and take it in one piece at a time.

   It can make someone feel overwhelmed if a lot of information is thrown at them at once. But grouping information and packing it in neat little pieces ensures that the recruiter has time to grasp one piece of information before moving onto the next.

   This is helpful to you as a pencil artist as creating distinct sections optimizes your resume and creates the maximum impact on the recruiter.

3. Don’t shy away from displaying your skills

   If you have been working as a pencil artist for a while, you are bound to have picked up extra skills along the line. You might have worked as a curator, conducted workshops or exhibitions.

   There is even the possibility that you might have picked up some sweet marketing skills while trying to sell your artwork.

   These skills need a special mention in your resume. Not to say that the more experience you have the more skills you might have gathered. So, while a newbie might struggle to come up with plausible skills to mention, you have the whole artillery at your disposal. Use it wisely!

   Let your skills carry the torch of your talent! Dedicate a distinct section called ‘Key Skills’ to these skills and mention all the skills you have accumulated through the years as a pencil artist.

4. Apply the right format to your resume

   Choose your resume format based on the stage of your career you are currently at. Following are the resume formats based on different stages:

   • Starters, individuals with career gaps, or frequent job-hoppers should use the functional resume format. This format does not give much attention to the timeline. Rather it focuses entirely on a person’s skill-set. It does, however, have a drawback as it is not favored by the ATS.
   • Other than that, the reverse-chronological format works for every professional, whatever the stage of your career. And the combination format which combines the best of both functional and reverse-chronological formats is best suitable for people with extensive experience of over 10 years and professionals who have skipped jobs frequently.
   • Profile Title
   • The reverse-chronological format provides all the relevant information to the recruiter and thus is highly favorable. It does so by going from where you are now to the beginning. Not only is it ATS friendly but recruiters also love seeing this format as it makes evaluating a resume much easier.
   • On the other hand, the combination resume format also presents the information in a reverse timeline while focusing on the acquired skills of a person. It is suitable for senior-level experienced professionals because they are bound to have collected a large pool of skills throughout their career trajectory and this format helps them showcase these skills effectively.
     The combination format is also highly ATS-friendly.
5. Select the right length for your resume

   You might think that the more information you provide, the more likely it is that you will get selected. And, why not? The devil is in the details. Right?

   However, this eye-tracking study suggests otherwise. It proves that the smaller your resume length the better the chances of your resume being evaluated in its entirety.

   According to this study, an average recruiter spends around 67 seconds to evaluate a resume.

   So, an overly worded resume will disinterest any recruiter and will lead straight to rejection. You need to find the balance between your resume being informative while also being brief.

   The ideal length of a resume has been determined to be a single page. Write a one page resume if your work experience is less than 10 years. However, if your work experience transcends 10 years, you can extend your resume to a maximum of two pages.

   If you find it difficult to keep your resume under the desired length, options like a better template, optimizing the font size, alignments, and formatting can help optimize the length of your resume.

   You can even consider adjusting the line spacing if your resume is unnecessarily spilling over to more than one page by a few lines.

6. Integrate keywords in your resume

   Most hiring managers and recruiters today utilize the help of the Applicant Tracking System (ATS) to shortlist candidates for a position. They can be set to determine the competency of an applicant based on certain criteria. One of the most common of which are keywords.

   When this system scans an application, it looks for these keywords and your application gets parsed if they are present.

   It is easy to identify which keywords you need to get past the ATS. All you need to do is look through the job description of the role you are targeting. The recruiters will mention everything here, from skills to the education needed.

   Pick only the keywords that apply to you and replicate them in your resume.

   Also, remember that you have to repeat the same process for every job you apply to.

   Every recruiter will have a different set of requirements and may just simply use varied language than the previous one. It is your job to customize your resume each time to reach your desired shortlist.

7. Must-have sections in a pencil artist resume

   An artist’s resume is different than a regular resume and naturally has some additions to the ones mentioned in the second point of the article. These sections are as follows:

   1. Bibliography: Here you write down wherever your work has been published to date. It could range from interviews you gave on television or radio. Any reviews that were published in books, magazines, newspapers or catalogs. And most importantly when and where your art was published or displayed.
   2. Exhibitions: Here mention the names of the exhibition and where they were held including space, city and, state’s name. Categorize each exhibition under the type of art show it was which could range from invitational, group, juried to solo art shows, etc.
   3. Collections: Mention where your artwork has been collected. Take the permission of a private collector before mentioning their information on your resume. On the contrary, if your artwork is being collected by any corporations or by any public domain, feel free to mention these.

Conclusion

To conclude, keep your resume brief and decisive because bulky resumes are often ignored by recruiters because of their length alone. The goal of your resume is to get as much information across to the recruiter as possible. Pair it with a portfolio of your life’s work. Your art is the testament of your talent and experience, keep the focus on it.

Keep the length of your resume to one page. Only exceed this length if your experience extends to more than 10 years. Organize and structure your resume to perfection while including information like bibliography, exhibitions, and collections.

Put faith in your skills while doing the best to display them. Use keywords and every other option available to you to draft the perfect pencil artist resume.